Month: April 2016

On a stop by my apartment during Finals Week, I chanced to share an elevator with a freshman girl. We didn’t know each other, so in line with proper elevator etiquette, we both stared firmly at the floor and waited for the bell to ring. After a few seconds I thought, “What am I doing? There’s another human being on this elevator with me—a female one, for that matter—and I’m pretending she doesn’t exist!” So I looked up and said hello. She tentatively said hello back and looked back at the floor.

To see if I could start a conversation, I asked her how Finals were treating her. That was the ticket. She looked up at me and told me how stressed she was. And how much sleep she’d lost. And how many professors hated her and how impossible her schedule was… At the end she took a deep sigh and told me that the only thing keeping her going was the hope of Summer after it was all over.

Now, I don’t know why, but the only thing that occurred to me was to ask her if she’d ever heard of post-exam depression. She looked at me as though I’d just told her that her house had burned down. Then she opened her mouth to say something… right as the bell rang and the door opened to my floor.

Vignettes aside, we all know that there’s both a pain and a fondness about the end, be it the end of the day, the semester, the job, the relationship, or whatever you please. About the only end that we don’t both anticipate and dread is the weekend, and even that depends on what’s due by Monday.

Anyway, while I’d like to say that The Close attempts to capture that sentiment, it really came as more of an accident. The opening theme was inspired by my favorite muse: boredom. As the project unfolded, though, it became my mainstay through the last weeks of the semester. My social life certainly suffered, but the end product has since turned into a part of my identity. I hope you enjoy it.

Made for the Special Forces by the Special Forces (well, by the people who design their stuff anyway). Project costs ended up totaling in the millions, and to be honest, most of it probably bought Ferraris for senators. But hey, the suit works. I mean, we think it does… It probably won’t make it through testing until at least five years from now.